IPrA panel "Quoting from the case file: Intertextual practices in courtroom discourse"

[Sigurd D'hondt]

apologies for cross-posting...


[call for abstracts]

Panel at the 12th International Pragmatics
Conference, Manchester, 3-8 July, 2011


QUOTING FROM THE CASE FILE: INTERTEXTUAL PRACTICES IN
COURTROOM DISCOURSE

organizers: Sigurd D'hondt (Ghent University) & Fleur van den Houwen  
(VU University, Amsterdam)


Criminal trial hearings are communicative events which are densely  
intertextually structured. Documents in the case file such as police  
records of the arrest, witness statements and expert records are  
extensively referred to, quoted, requoted, and recontextualized in the  
course of the trial - which is inevitable because demonstrating the  
defendant's criminal liability and the establishment of a binding  
legal reality crucially hinge on the transformation of these  
discourses into lawful evidence. For this panel, we invite  
contributions from various angles that explore how quoting in the  
courtroom is actually done, including - but not limited to -  
conversation analysis, linguistic anthropology, and interactional  
sociolinguistics. Rather than tracing the intertextual trajectory of  
these various discourses throughout the legal institutions (which we  
rather consider as a general background to our enterprise), we seek  
papers that specifically focus on the question how quoting and related  
intertextual practices are sensitive to the particulars of the  
courtroom environment. Questions that come to mind are for example:

* What form do intertextual practices take (direct/indirect quote,  
summarizing etc.)?
* Who is quoted (e.g. suspect or witness?) how, and in what  
interactional environment?
* To what extent is quoting intertwined with the projection of  
institutional identities? (For example, do prosecutors and defense  
attorneys quote differently?)
* How is quoting responded to by the other parties?
* How does the legal system (accusatorial vs. inquisitorial) affect  
intertextual practices?
* ...


As indicated, the proposed panel is open to researchers from different  
approaches. We envisage two 90-minute sessions, each including three  
to four presentations.

Some important deadlines:

* Sept. 15, 2010     send abstracts (500 words) to Sigurd.Dhondt at Ugent.be
* Oct. 29, 2010      authors must have submitted their abstracts to  
IPrA (n.b.: IPrA membership required!)
* July 3-8, 2011     IPrA Conference, Manchester